Everybody gets blamed when they make bad decisions. No different for the CEO.

Its hasn't been considered reasonable to earn 100's of thousands of times more than most people. That's kind of the definition of excess, and is used throughout history to illustrate societies gone haywire (despot kings, religious wealth in the presence of poverty etc).

There are literally thousands of people who would line up to make those critical decisions. They don't earn that much because of the market. CEOs earn that much because the folks at a company that can write checks, write them to each other.